Freeware garden: Americano

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They don’t merely dream of electric sheep these days. They have actually reached the point of loving old books and lusting over good looking if vacuous boys. Yes, today’s androids are indeed different. More sophisticated*. More mature perhaps and definitely more interesting as characters in and of themselves than as intriguing sci-fi concepts to be explored.

Evidently, they are also perfectly capable of enjoying cheery tunes during storms of melancholy and, of course, of savoring an Americano.

Now, I may not care much about this sort of coffee, but I do care about great twine games, especially when they feature AI entities awkwardly trying to seduce humans, excellent, all moving, all dancing typography and a tendency to link to all kinds of lovely things.

Americano is exactly this sort of game and, to make itself even more enticing, sports a lovely selection of soundtracks and some pretty evocative illustrations too. I always thought that most of interactive fiction could benefit from a few quality pieces of artwork here and there, you know. Unobtrusive art that doesn’t substitute written descriptions, but simply enriches them.

Anyway. This particular texty story of a robot’s love for a human in a hipsterian dystopia is rather superb and quite a bit silly and comes thus highly recommended. Particularly odd people may also be inspired by the dating advice it doesn’t really offer and, surely, everyone will appreciate its choice of coiffures.

[* Not as sophisticated as Asimov’s or Dick’s droids, mind you, but we’re slowly getting there. I hope.]